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Kate Beckinsale thinks she was unfairly branded a Hollywood ditz after making the move to Los Angeles.

The London-born star swapped the UK for Hollywood in the 2000s, when she established herself as one of the movie industry's most sought-after actresses, but Kate thinks the public's perception of her at that time was inconsistent with reality.

She recalled: "It was a really weird window of time. It was in the days when, if you moved to LA, you were immediately seen as an ass in England.

"It was something you had to apologise for constantly, to the press, to your family. It was immediately like, 'You're going to become a d**k.' I was somebody who mainly seemed to walk around the red carpet, which was completely not the case.

"I spent 90 percent of my time rushing home to look after my kid, which was excellent protection. Nobody wants to s**g the woman who's wearing the BabyBjorn."

Kate remembers starring alongside Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett in the Michael Bay-directed war drama Peal Harbor, for which she was forced to undergo a military-style fitness regime in order to get fit for the role.

However, the British actress had only recent given birth to her daughter Lily with her now ex-husband Michael Sheen - and she did not relish the workout plan.

She told the Sunday Times newspaper: "He would stand there looking at me with this horror-stricken face, desperately trying to figure out how he could possible make me attractive.

"They'd go, 'Now she needs to get some highlights in her hair'; 'What if she had false nails?'; 'What can we do about her boobs?' Let's put some padding in her bra.'

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"I felt like a Christmas tree. At the end of the day, I'd flip out, shed, moult, go home as ugly as I went in."